It really depends on how you define “successful.” If your measure of success is based on how closely these societies resemble Western, liberal, capitalist societies, then, yeah, you’re probably not going to see a whole lot of “success,” but that’s not what these revolutionary movements were trying to achieve. I would say that first and foremost what essentially every communist movement was striving for was just autonomy and independence, and many have been successful in that regard. Vietnam is an independent nation, instead of a French colony. China, similarly, is no longer under the thumb of the British. You may not like what these nations do with their autonomy, but that is what they were striving for and they have achieved it.

Every group of people need to have autonomy and independence, and the right to self-govern. No people should have to fear violence and repression from another group.

I suppose the military and police are public sector workers, but doesn’t that imply that he should be focusing on dismantling the defense department and like FBI, DHS, etc?

Donnie doesn’t have a stable policy

That seems to be the case.

Trade wars could cause countries to “go back to being insular,” Bhatia said, which could cultivate “spurts of patriotism that translate into people spending more locally in their own nation.”

Consumer spending on goods and services account for around two-thirds of U.S. gross domestic product. There is therefore is a “high probability” that a tariff-induced increase in domestic expenditure will cause the country’s GDP to “do better than you anticipate,” Bhatia said.

None of that sounds all that bad, to me, but Americans have gotten very used to buying cheap goods imported from foreign countries where labor and other costs are much lower. The whole point of tariffs is to make those foreign made goods more expensive so that American made goods can better compete with them on price, but that doesn’t result in things getting less expensive for consumers (or producers, for that matter, since they’ve also gotten used to cheap, foreign made parts and components). Prices will go up, and if they go up too much American consumers might stop buying.

Or will they? Americans be shoppin’, and I’m not sure how high prices would have to go for them to stop. I don’t know where people get the money to just keep consuming, but they do, somehow.

Edit: I think there is the threat of American producers trying to keep prices from going up too much by finding ways to suppress wages for workers and by just making products crappier, since their primary focus will be squeezing every possible penny of profit out of every sale.

Two decades of mostly uninterrupted neoliberal rule.

Corporate profits are higher than ever largely because corporations have been able to get greater productivity out of workers without increasing pay. If wages had kept up with productivity, profits wouldn’t be nearly as high.

Edit: the reason this is a mystery to so many mainstream economists is because they don’t want to reconcile with one simple fact: in order for profits to keep going up, worker wages must be suppressed while also increasing productivity. Why do you think so many billions of dollars are being spent on AI development? Many see it as the key to ever increasing profits, because the worker, and their pesky demand for adequate compensation can be removed entirely.

I’m sure they matter to you.

They do. The question is: do they matter to you?

Particularly the concerns of charlie kirk

I don’t know why you keep bringing up Charlie Kirk. I know next to nothing about him, I don’t listen to him. I don’t know, or care what he thinks about, well, much of anything, really.

And your wing of the party has made it crystal clear that they are uninterested in helping anyone poorer than the “good billionaires” they toady up to.

It’s not my wing of the party. I don’t have a party, which is why I said I wanted to build a new Leftist movement: one that is interested in the concerns of the working class people. But, what folks like you don’t understand, is that most working class people are not concerned about whether or not trans women are allowed to participate in women’s sports. They are concerned about paying their rent, feeding their families, affording medical care, and other day-to-day, material issues. I choose to focus on those issues. You can focus on whatever you want, I don’t care. My new Leftist movement won’t include people like you, because you’re not helping anyone, and I don’t think you care to. You would accept widespread harm, so long as you could go on performing as a social justice advocate.

I have nothing more to say to you. I’m really not interested in reading another one of your vapid, banal responses about Charlie Kirk, or whatever other nonsense you might come up with. I’m going to go actually try to make the world a better place.

I’m not the one deflecting. You never answered my question: should the concerns of non-trans people also matter to the Left?

Yes, this thread is about trans issues, specifically the question of whether or not trans women should be allowed to participate in women’s sports. Do you realize how privileged you have to be for that to be a major concern? Poverty, destitution, illness, these are problems that millions of people face everyday, yet you won’t even acknowledge them because “that’s not what this thread is about.” You’re no Leftist.

I don’t side with charlie kirk regarding trans people, for one. Discussion’s about trans people.

When did I even once mention trans people?

If I dare to disagree with you and charlie kirk, I need to have a solution for every last one of the world’s ills?

When did I even once mention Charlie Kirk?

Is that all you think the Left is? Trans issues? There’s nothing more to the Left than matters pertaining to trans people? You do realize that there are many billions of people on the planet who are not trans, and that their concerns matter as well?

How do you know that you’re to my left? You don’t know me. What makes you so far left, anyway? Are you a Marxist, anarchist? What? You wanna gate keep the left, let’s do it. Give me your specific socioeconomic, sociopolitical ideal, and details about how you think it can be achieved. I’m dying to hear about your grand plan to change the world and usher in utopia. Come on, we’re all waiting for you. The future of humanity is in your hands, your plan had better be good.

No, dingus, I don’t.

That’s not true. You don’t know what you’re talking about. Stop. Just stop.

I say that to anyone who doesn’t know what they’re talking about.

You don’t know what you’re talking about.

It is a significant challenge. We absolutely do need to change the culture, and I think that is best achieved at the local level. I think it’s a dead end trying to change the culture from the top down, I think we will have much more success building from the bottom up. But, that will require being heavily involved in our communities. That is a tricky proposition for many of us, because some of us live in pretty conservative, even reactionary communities. There’s no easy answers here.

One possibility is for leftists to all move to the same state or states, to concentrate our power, to make us less diffuse and spread out. That’s a pretty drastic plan, and probably not feasible for a lot of people, but it’s one possibility, I suppose.

It’s asinine, and that’s why we need a new Left in the US: a Left of people who actually want to build a society in which the highest possible health and well being is achieved for the largest possible number of people, and who are willing and able to learn and adapt, to find the most effective methods for achieving said society, even if it means compromising and being pragmatic. A Left that is measured by results, rather than performative social justice advocacy.

such an obviously stupid hill to die on

The Left in the US would so much rather die on the hill of perceived moral superiority than achieve any of their goals. And, thus, here we are.

I recently played through New Order, Old Blood, and New Colossus again. God, I love those games.

Among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents, 45 percent say they want their party to become more moderate, while 29 percent say they want the party to become more liberal, and 22 percent say they want the party to stay the same.

These words are meaningless. In many countries, to become more liberal is the same thing as becoming more moderate. It’s confusing to me because liberal and moderate mean one thing in the US and something else in the rest of the world. And I live in the US! After all these years, I still don’t quite understand what people mean by liberal, moderate, and conservative. Liberalism is an actual ideology with an actual definition, Conservativism is an actual ideology with an actual definition.

So, what do the American people want? If it’s some kind compromise between actual Liberalism and actual Conservativism, what would that look like, specifically? Which aspects of Liberalism do they want, and which aspects of Conservatism, and in what proportions? And what about ideologies other than Liberalism and Conservatism? Why are those two ideologies our only choices?

Oh wait, I already know the answer